Re: R/ASSA query
2010/1/13 Nick Prince m...@dtech.fsnet.co.uk: I’ve read through a good deal of previous posts on the ASSA/RSSA debate but I keep reaching a stumbling block regarding how successive observer moments (OM) are to be expected in terms of their continuity. I think Youness Ayaita queried the same thing as I am here but articulated it much better - this post was a question concerning the ASSA/RSSA debate (Sept 18 2007). Stathis gave an answer which was very helpful (as usual) but he still referred to a uniform? distribution which I find difficult to understand. Russell called it global! From the everything wiki I have looked up the relevant definitions for the two contentious sampling assumptions which are quote : The Relative Self Sampling Assumption (RSSA) is a form of anthropic reasoning that assumes our present observer moment is selected according to a measure that depends on another given observer moment (the prior observer moment). As such it implicitly relies on a notion of time that gives rise to a succession of observer moments. In one interpretation of quantum mechanics, observer moments are identified with the quantum state |psi. The measure used with the RSSA is just given by the Born rule The Absolute Self Sampling Assumption, (ASSA) is a form of anthropic reasoning that assumes our present observer moment is selected from the set of all observer moments according to some absolute measure. To be contrasted with the Relative Self Sampling Assumption. Where I have difficulty with understanding the ASSA is in terms of its implications for our next observer moment. Is the absolute measure, referred to in the ASSA definition really intended to be a uniform distribution in the sense that my next OM could be equally any one from the multiverse? This would be strange indeed and would result in me experiencing all sorts of discontinuous happenings – even if the reference class was restricted to OM’s which I experience. On the other hand, am I to understand that the ASSA does not carry with it any implicit assumption about the probability distribution (absolute measure) that OM’s are selected from? Instead must we assume the nature of this distribution for picking out our next OM is to be determined by some other considerations like: “it is the laws of physics which glue OM’s together” as an example)? (I know that a computationalist might come up with another solution as to how the OM’s are stitched together, but that is not my point). Is it assumed (as a given for now anyway), that there is some additional mechanism or explanation as to why observer moments are stitched together in the way they are? Or, if a uniform distribution is implied, then how can this be reasonable? The RSSA, as I understand it would use the Born rule to indicate which successive OM’s are possible and likely. Why the ASSA is applicable to determine our birth OM I am also not sure of either. I would be very grateful to anyone who can clarify this for me. The ASSA/RSSA distinction on this list came, as I understand it, from debate on the validity of the idea of quantum immortality. This is the theory that in a multiverse you can never die, because at every juncture where you could die there is always a version of you that continues living. The ASSA proponents say that even though there are thousand year old versions of you in the multiverse they are of very low measure and you are therefore very unlikely to find yourself one of them, as unlikely as you are to end up living to a thousand through pure good luck in a single universe. This paper by Jacques Mallah outlines the position: http://arxiv.org/abs/0902.0187. A point of disagreement when we discussed this paper on the list about a year ago is that Jacques thinks it would be a bad thing if there were many copies of a person in lockstep and some of the copies were destroyed, whereas if I were one of the copies it wouldn't worry me at all. The problem with the ASSA is that it assumes that each OM is sampled randomly from the set of all OM's. In fact, this is not how life works. Today is Wednesday. I'm pretty sure that when I wake up tomorrow morning it will be Thursday, and not Friday, even though (absent some disaster) the measure of my Friday OM's in the multiverse is about the same as the measure of my Thursday OM's. Even if there were a billion copies of me on Friday and only one copy on Thursday, I can still expect to go through the Thursday copy before ending up a Friday copy. Once embedded in the multiverse, it puts constraints on my possible successor OM. If I'm not already embedded in the multiverse then I could be anyone, and I am therefore more likely to be someone from a high probability group or era. So I am more likely to be a modern human than an early human, for example, because there are more modern humans. I think that's what Russell means by the ASSA being aplicable in birth order. This is a tricky
Re: UDA query
2010/1/13 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: You're asserting that neuron I/O replication is the appropriate level to make brain behavior the same; and I tend to agree that would be sufficient (though perhaps not necessary). But that's preserving a particular algorithm; one more specific than the Platonic computation of its equivalence class. Any algorithm would do, implemented on any hardware, as long as it did the job. Ten engineers working independently on the problem would probably come up with ten different solutions, even if they worked with the same theoretical model of a neuron. I suppose a Turing machine could perform the same computation, but it would perform it very differently. And I wonder how the Turing machine would manage perception. The organs of perception would have their responses digitized into bit strings and these would be written to the TM on different tapes? I think this illustrates my point that, while preservation of consciousness under the digital neuron substitution seems plausible, there is still another leap in substituting an abstract computation for the digital neurons. There is a leap involved in eliminating the hardware but the first step is establishing computationalism: that in principal you could replace the brain with a digital computer and preserve the mind. If the artificial neurons work as described then doesn't that prove this? The level of the neuron is an arbitrary one. We could instead consider replacing volumes of brain tissue with a computer-controlled device that replicates the I/O behaviour at the surface of the volume, where it interfaces with normal brain tissue, and expand the size of the volume until the whole brain is replaced. One linear processor could then do all the work, and it wouldn't matter what processor it was (as long as it was fast enough and had enough memory), what language the program was written in, or even what program it was. Multiple realisability is a basic feature of functionalism. Also, such an AI brain would not permit slicing the computations into arbitrarily short time periods because there is communication time involved and neurons run asynchronously. The whole brain could be aggregated into one computation, and a virtual environment could run as a subroutine. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: R/ASSA query
2010/1/14 Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com: Given the ways ASSA has been defined, I think there are two possible camps within ASSA. One that believes there is a next moment for you to experience, chosen randomly from among all, and another which believes there is no next moment, the observer is the observer moment, an eternal thought. In that respect, ASSA would be more likely to tie the informational state to the consciousness rather than the computational process itself. In the fixed, no next OM model, which one you find yourself is sampled from among all OMs, just who you start is is selected within RSSA. One might think it is absurd to believe they will never observer the next moment, that they might be stuck forever never having finished this sentence, and that 5 seconds from now will prove this idea wrong. But perhaps the you who waited 5 seconds is simply the OM you will be forever. Problems defining personal identity only creep in between the extremes of believing every OM is a unique observer and believing all OMs belong to the same observer. The latter idea is more interesting to me, as it yields reasons for why we should plan and work for the future, and why it is good to treat others as they would like to be treated, while the former offers no reason, or even ability to try or do anything. You can't deny that it *seems* there is a next OM and it *seems* that there is a set of OM's constituting your life. This would happen even if in fact all the OM's were completely separate, disconnected entities. In other words, the question of whether the OM's are separate or belong to the one observer is meaningless, since there is no subjective difference. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: R/ASSA query
On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 8:32 AM, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.comwrote: 2010/1/14 Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com: Given the ways ASSA has been defined, I think there are two possible camps within ASSA. One that believes there is a next moment for you to experience, chosen randomly from among all, and another which believes there is no next moment, the observer is the observer moment, an eternal thought. In that respect, ASSA would be more likely to tie the informational state to the consciousness rather than the computational process itself. In the fixed, no next OM model, which one you find yourself is sampled from among all OMs, just who you start is is selected within RSSA. One might think it is absurd to believe they will never observer the next moment, that they might be stuck forever never having finished this sentence, and that 5 seconds from now will prove this idea wrong. But perhaps the you who waited 5 seconds is simply the OM you will be forever. Problems defining personal identity only creep in between the extremes of believing every OM is a unique observer and believing all OMs belong to the same observer. The latter idea is more interesting to me, as it yields reasons for why we should plan and work for the future, and why it is good to treat others as they would like to be treated, while the former offers no reason, or even ability to try or do anything. You can't deny that it *seems* there is a next OM and it *seems* that there is a set of OM's constituting your life. This would happen even if in fact all the OM's were completely separate, disconnected entities. In other words, the question of whether the OM's are separate or belong to the one observer is meaningless, since there is no subjective difference. I agree, there is no subjective difference. But I think there is a logical difference, if you are only your current OM why go to work when some other OM will enjoy the fruits of that labor? But by attaching every OM to the same observer then there is a reason to make sacrifices such as work to the benefit and hopefully overall improvement of the collection of OMs. While one might believe all OM's exist so it doesn't matter what anyone does it is possible to escape this in believing the number or measure of OMs matters. This has also been a matter of contention on this list. Jason -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Everything List Survey
All, I've created a basic survey regarding common topics of discussion on the everything list. I think the results would be quite interesting. It is available here: http://freeonlinesurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=n32533346wr4fp0694426 If others come forward with a lot of suggestions for other questions, I could consolidate them into a more in-depth survey. Thanks, Jason -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: R/ASSA query
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: ... The ASSA/RSSA distinction on this list came, as I understand it, from debate on the validity of the idea of quantum immortality. This is the theory that in a multiverse you can never die, because at every juncture where you could die there is always a version of you that continues living. The ASSA proponents say that even though there are thousand year old versions of you in the multiverse they are of very low measure and you are therefore very unlikely to find yourself one of them, as unlikely as you are to end up living to a thousand through pure good luck in a single universe. This paper by Jacques Mallah outlines the position: http://arxiv.org/abs/0902.0187. A point of disagreement when we discussed this paper on the list about a year ago is that Jacques thinks it would be a bad thing if there were many copies of a person in lockstep and some of the copies were destroyed, whereas if I were one of the copies it wouldn't worry me at all. The problem with the ASSA is that it assumes that each OM is sampled randomly from the set of all OM's. In fact, this is not how life works. Today is Wednesday. I'm pretty sure that when I wake up tomorrow morning it will be Thursday, and not Friday, even though (absent some disaster) the measure of my Friday OM's in the multiverse is about the same as the measure of my Thursday OM's. Even if there were a billion copies of me on Friday and only one copy on Thursday, I can still expect to go through the Thursday copy before ending up a Friday copy. Once embedded in the multiverse, it puts constraints on my possible successor OM. If I'm not already embedded in the multiverse then I could be anyone, and I am therefore more likely to be someone from a high probability group or era. So I am more likely to be a modern human than an early human, for example, because there are more modern humans. I think that's what Russell means by the ASSA being aplicable in birth order. This is a tricky concept to get your mind around and leads to semi-weirdness such as the Doomsday Argument. But that I'll experience Thursday before Friday even if there are lots of me on Friday is, I think, relatively straightforward. Is this different from your idea that experiencing Friday only comes after experinicing Thursday because Friday contains some memory of Thursday? You seem to be assuming an extrinsic order in the above. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: UDA query
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: 2010/1/13 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: You're asserting that neuron I/O replication is the appropriate level to make brain behavior the same; and I tend to agree that would be sufficient (though perhaps not necessary). But that's preserving a particular algorithm; one more specific than the Platonic computation of its equivalence class. Any algorithm would do, implemented on any hardware, as long as it did the job. Ten engineers working independently on the problem would probably come up with ten different solutions, even if they worked with the same theoretical model of a neuron. I suppose a Turing machine could perform the same computation, but it would perform it very differently. And I wonder how the Turing machine would manage perception. The organs of perception would have their responses digitized into bit strings and these would be written to the TM on different tapes? I think this illustrates my point that, while preservation of consciousness under the digital neuron substitution seems plausible, there is still another leap in substituting an abstract computation for the digital neurons. There is a leap involved in eliminating the hardware but the first step is establishing computationalism: that in principal you could replace the brain with a digital computer and preserve the mind. If the artificial neurons work as described then doesn't that prove this? The level of the neuron is an arbitrary one. We could instead consider replacing volumes of brain tissue with a computer-controlled device that replicates the I/O behaviour at the surface of the volume, where it interfaces with normal brain tissue, and expand the size of the volume until the whole brain is replaced. One linear processor could then do all the work, and it wouldn't matter what processor it was (as long as it was fast enough and had enough memory), what language the program was written in, or even what program it was. Multiple realisability is a basic feature of functionalism. Also, such an AI brain would not permit slicing the computations into arbitrarily short time periods because there is communication time involved and neurons run asynchronously. The whole brain could be aggregated into one computation, and a virtual environment could run as a subroutine. Yes, I can see that. By aggregating the brain into one computation do you mean replacing it with a synchronous digital computer whose program would not only reproduce the I/O of individual neurons, but also the instantaneous state on signals which were traveling between them (since presumably timing is important to the neurons function)? Or do you mean replacing it with a synchronous digital computer which produces the same I/O at the afferent and efferent nerves? In the former case, it seems that thoughts would be distributed over many, not necessarily sequential, computational steps. In the later it would not be possible to map the the computational steps to brain states at all since they are only required to be the same at the I/O; and hence difficult to say what constituted a thought. Given these to two possible models of functionalism, I'm not clear on what the same computation means. Are these two doing the same computation because they have the same I/O? Over what range of I does the O have to be the same - all possible? all actually experienced? those experienced in the last 2minutes? Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: R/ASSA query
On Jan 13, 6:21 pm, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: Stathis Papaioannou wrote: ... The ASSA/RSSA distinction on this list came, as I understand it, from debate on the validity of the idea of quantum immortality. This is the theory that in a multiverse you can never die, because at every juncture where you could die there is always a version of you that continues living. The ASSA proponents say that even though there are thousand year old versions of you in the multiverse they are of very low measure and you are therefore very unlikely to find yourself one of them, as unlikely as you are to end up living to a thousand through pure good luck in a single universe. This paper by Jacques Mallah outlines the position:http://arxiv.org/abs/0902.0187. A point of disagreement when we discussed this paper on the list about a year ago is that Jacques thinks it would be a bad thing if there were many copies of a person in lockstep and some of the copies were destroyed, whereas if I were one of the copies it wouldn't worry me at all. The problem with the ASSA is that it assumes that each OM is sampled randomly from the set of all OM's. In fact, this is not how life works. Today is Wednesday. I'm pretty sure that when I wake up tomorrow morning it will be Thursday, and not Friday, even though (absent some disaster) the measure of my Friday OM's in the multiverse is about the same as the measure of my Thursday OM's. Even if there were a billion copies of me on Friday and only one copy on Thursday, I can still expect to go through the Thursday copy before ending up a Friday copy. Once embedded in the multiverse, it puts constraints on my possible successor OM. If I'm not already embedded in the multiverse then I could be anyone, and I am therefore more likely to be someone from a high probability group or era. So I am more likely to be a modern human than an early human, for example, because there are more modern humans. I think that's what Russell means by the ASSA being aplicable in birth order. This is a tricky concept to get your mind around and leads to semi-weirdness such as the Doomsday Argument. But that I'll experience Thursday before Friday even if there are lots of me on Friday is, I think, relatively straightforward. Is this different from your idea that experiencing Friday only comes after experinicing Thursday because Friday contains some memory of Thursday? You seem to be assuming an extrinsic order in the above. Brent- I am thinking it must have something to do with this. The probability distribution I brought up in my answer to Stathis must have some sort of conditional status for OM's and so somehow each observer moment must have a kind of date/time stamp associated with it i.e. OM at time 1 is somehow contained in OM at time 2. However, in the past, I just ascribed this to be because of the need for a consistency with the laws of physics. What puzzles me is whether the probability distribution which accounts for these time (and space/matter) sequenced observer moments is prior to and therefore responsible for the laws of physics or whether it is the other way round because this would seem to be some way to help determine the distinction between a physicalist or an observationalist TOE. Best Nick Prince -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: R/ASSA query
Stathis, I feel both ASSA and RSSA are variations WITHIN human thinking with a minuscule difference of handling. When I TRY to think about 'everything' I feel I have to step out from the restrictions of the human 'mind'(?) capabilities and (at least) imagine to grasp totality (i.e. the wholeness) without 'assuming' any self-sampling limitations - be it absolute, or relative, - in its uncompromised entirety.. The fact that (today?) we cannot do it, is no argument against 'it has to be done'. I don't settle for half-solutions when I am looking for the theoretically right answers. No compromise. I am 'agnostic', meaning that I condone my incapability to reach such levels. Are you in favor of a self-inflicted - assumed (limited) gnosis? Yes, I am shooting at the stars: being on the Everything list is not a ground-level compromise for (humanly?) attainable (partial) knowledge. To be satisfied with such, one should attend Physics 101. Or: arithmetic 101 (not even math 101). John Mikes On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 4:25 AM, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.comwrote: 2010/1/13 Nick Prince m...@dtech.fsnet.co.uk: I’ve read through a good deal of previous posts on the ASSA/RSSA debate but I keep reaching a stumbling block regarding how successive observer moments (OM) are to be expected in terms of their continuity. I think Youness Ayaita queried the same thing as I am here but articulated it much better - this post was a question concerning the ASSA/RSSA debate (Sept 18 2007). Stathis gave an answer which was very helpful (as usual) but he still referred to a uniform? distribution which I find difficult to understand. Russell called it global! From the everything wiki I have looked up the relevant definitions for the two contentious sampling assumptions which are quote : The Relative Self Sampling Assumption (RSSA) is a form of anthropic reasoning that assumes our present observer moment is selected according to a measure that depends on another given observer moment (the prior observer moment). As such it implicitly relies on a notion of time that gives rise to a succession of observer moments. In one interpretation of quantum mechanics, observer moments are identified with the quantum state |psi. The measure used with the RSSA is just given by the Born rule The Absolute Self Sampling Assumption, (ASSA) is a form of anthropic reasoning that assumes our present observer moment is selected from the set of all observer moments according to some absolute measure. To be contrasted with the Relative Self Sampling Assumption. Where I have difficulty with understanding the ASSA is in terms of its implications for our next observer moment. Is the absolute measure, referred to in the ASSA definition really intended to be a uniform distribution in the sense that my next OM could be equally any one from the multiverse? This would be strange indeed and would result in me experiencing all sorts of discontinuous happenings – even if the reference class was restricted to OM’s which I experience. On the other hand, am I to understand that the ASSA does not carry with it any implicit assumption about the probability distribution (absolute measure) that OM’s are selected from? Instead must we assume the nature of this distribution for picking out our next OM is to be determined by some other considerations like: “it is the laws of physics which glue OM’s together” as an example)? (I know that a computationalist might come up with another solution as to how the OM’s are stitched together, but that is not my point). Is it assumed (as a given for now anyway), that there is some additional mechanism or explanation as to why observer moments are stitched together in the way they are? Or, if a uniform distribution is implied, then how can this be reasonable? The RSSA, as I understand it would use the Born rule to indicate which successive OM’s are possible and likely. Why the ASSA is applicable to determine our birth OM I am also not sure of either. I would be very grateful to anyone who can clarify this for me. The ASSA/RSSA distinction on this list came, as I understand it, from debate on the validity of the idea of quantum immortality. This is the theory that in a multiverse you can never die, because at every juncture where you could die there is always a version of you that continues living. The ASSA proponents say that even though there are thousand year old versions of you in the multiverse they are of very low measure and you are therefore very unlikely to find yourself one of them, as unlikely as you are to end up living to a thousand through pure good luck in a single universe. This paper by Jacques Mallah outlines the position: http://arxiv.org/abs/0902.0187. A point of disagreement when we discussed this paper on the list about a year ago is that Jacques thinks it would be a bad thing
Re: Everything List Survey
There have been 9 responses so far, I've attached a preview of the results to this e-mail. Unfortunately there does not seem to be a way to make the results publicly viewable. With this free service, the survey will remain live until 10 days pass or until there are 50 responses. Jason On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 10:29 AM, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: All, I've created a basic survey regarding common topics of discussion on the everything list. I think the results would be quite interesting. It is available here: http://freeonlinesurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=n32533346wr4fp0694426 If others come forward with a lot of suggestions for other questions, I could consolidate them into a more in-depth survey. Thanks, Jason Title: FreeOnlineSurveys.com View Results Results for: Everything List Survey 1) I believe that everything exists.PercentageResponsesTrue 88.9%8False 11.1%1Total responses:92) I believe in mathematical realism. (All self-consistent mathematical objects are real)PercentageResponsesTrue 77.8%7False 22.2%2Total responses:93) I believe in arithmatical realism (At a minimum, the integers have their own objective reality)PercentageResponsesTrue 66.7%6False 33.3%3Total responses:94) I believe the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is preferable to the copenhagen interpretation.PercentageResponsesTrue 77.8%7False 22.2%2Total responses:95) I believe in quantum (or some other) form of immortality.PercentageResponsesTrue 55.6%5False 44.4%4Total responses:96) I believe reality includes:PercentageResponsesMathematical, Material, or Physical structures11.11Consciousness and thought11.11Some combination of both55.65Other22.22Total responses:97) I believe that with the right software a digital computer can be consciousPercentageResponsesTrue 55.6%5False 44.4%4Total responses:98) I believe my next observer moment PercentageResponsesis a meaningless concept, I am an eternal thought22.22is a meaningless concept, I am all observer moments22.22is randomly selected from all extensions from my current one22.22is randomly selected from all observer moments0.00Other33.33Total responses:99) I believe the number of duplicate observer moments, or their measure, is meaningful to what I am experiencing nowPercentageResponsesTrue 44.4%4False 55.6%5Total responses:910) I believe the universe we find ourselves in currently PercentageResponsesis continuous and uncomputable12.51is digital and computable37.53is made up of an infinity of computations, and uncomputable50.04Total responses:811) I believe the following objects posess consciousness:PercentageResponsesMyself9.48Other human beings9.48Aliens of sufficient intelligence9.48Apes9.48Dolphins9.48Dogs8.27Cats9.48Mice7.16Shrimp5.95Spiders5.95Ants5.95Ant colonies3.53Thermostats3.53Web browsers2.42Rocks1.2112) Regarding time, I believe PercentageResponsesthat only the present is real22.22that only the past and present are real11.11that the past, present and future are real66.76Total responses:9 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Everything List Survey
2010/1/14 Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com: Interesting so far: - people are about evenly divided on the question of whether computers can be conscious - no-one really knows what to make of OM's - more people believe cats are conscious than dogs Oh, and one person does not believe that they are conscious! Come on, who's the zombie? -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Everything List Survey
On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 4:14 PM, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 10:17 PM, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.comwrote: 2010/1/14 Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com: Interesting so far: - people are about evenly divided on the question of whether computers can be conscious - no-one really knows what to make of OM's - more people believe cats are conscious than dogs Oh, and one person does not believe that they are conscious! Come on, who's the zombie? The main problem I had with the question is that consciousness isn't defined. So I took it to mean conscious like me and hence didn't choose anyone but 'me' 'others' and 'aliens' in the consciousness section. That said, I don't really believe there is an 'absolute' concsiousness; I think everything is as conscious as it is allowed to be by it's initial configuration. It just so happens that our configuration is higher than dogs, thus we appear more conscious. For this reason I also, obviously, answered that computers can become conscious (and that is to say, can be brought to our level; i.e. we invent ourselves). -- silky http://www.mirios.com.au/ http://island.mirios.com.au/t/rigby+random+20 redeposit = hyperlink colorlessness: fetishism. PATHFINDER? Disarmingly: BAPTISTERY nebulousl... -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: UDA query
2010/1/14 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: Yes, I can see that. By aggregating the brain into one computation do you mean replacing it with a synchronous digital computer whose program would not only reproduce the I/O of individual neurons, but also the instantaneous state on signals which were traveling between them (since presumably timing is important to the neurons function)? Or do you mean replacing it with a synchronous digital computer which produces the same I/O at the afferent and efferent nerves? In the former case, it seems that thoughts would be distributed over many, not necessarily sequential, computational steps. In the later it would not be possible to map the the computational steps to brain states at all since they are only required to be the same at the I/O; and hence difficult to say what constituted a thought. Given these to two possible models of functionalism, I'm not clear on what the same computation means. Are these two doing the same computation because they have the same I/O? Over what range of I does the O have to be the same - all possible? all actually experienced? those experienced in the last 2minutes? I think it would be enough for the AI to reproduce the I/O of the whole brain in aggregate. That would involve computing a function controlling each efferent nerve, accepting as data input from the afferent nerves. The behaviour would have to be the same as the brain for all possible inputs, otherwise the AI might fail the Turing test. It's not clear if the modelling would have to be at the molecular, cellular or some higher level in order to achieve this, but in any case I expect that there would be many different programs that could do the job even if the hardware and operating system are kept the same. It could therefore be a case of multiple computations leading to the same experience. Pinning down a thought to a location in time and space would pose no more of a problem for the AI than for the brain. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: R/ASSA query
2010/1/14 Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com: I agree, there is no subjective difference. But I think there is a logical difference, if you are only your current OM why go to work when some other OM will enjoy the fruits of that labor? But by attaching every OM to the same observer then there is a reason to make sacrifices such as work to the benefit and hopefully overall improvement of the collection of OMs. I don't think there is a logical difference either. What you make of this problem is probably the single most important thing in the philosophy of personal identity. Suppose in the future you wish to travel by means of destructive teleportation. There are two types of ticket that you can buy: Economy Class and First Class. Economy Class costs $500 and guarantees that the person coming out at the receiving station has the same physical structure, and hence the same memories and other mental attributes, as the person who went into the sending station. First Class costs $1000 and is the same as Economy Class, except that it is additionally guaranteed that the person coming out is the same person as the one who went in. Which ticket would you buy? -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: R/ASSA query
2010/1/14 Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com: Is this different from your idea that experiencing Friday only comes after experinicing Thursday because Friday contains some memory of Thursday? You seem to be assuming an extrinsic order in the above. I think it would be the same regardless of when the days were generated in real time. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
